t his dummy? Vultures! Better
have killed me than that poor obliging fool! You cursed, stupid idiots!
You have killed my dummy! I must sit as he did and look on. I must
swallow stinking air of throne-rooms. I must watch sluggards fight--you
miserable, wanton imbeciles! It is Paulus you have killed! Do you
appreciate that? Jupiter, but I will make Rome pay for this! Who did
it? Who did it, I say?"

Rage blinded him. He did not see the choking wretch whose wrist
Narcissus twisted, until he struck at Narcissus again and, trying to
follow him, stumbled over the assassin.

"Who is this? Give me a sword, somebody! Is this the murderer? Bring
that lamp here!"

Bolder than the others, having recently been praised, the senator
Tullius brought the lamp and, kneeling, held it near the culprit's face.
The murderer was beyond speech, hardly breathing, with his eyes half-
bursting from the sockets and his tongue thrust forward through his
teeth because Narcissus' thumbs had almost strangled him.

"A Christian," said Tullius.

There was a note of quiet exultation in his voice. The privileges of
the Christians were a sore point with the majority of senators.

"A what?" demanded Commodus.

"A Christian. See--he has a cross and a fish engraved on bone and wears
it hung from his neck beneath his tunic. Besides, I think I recognize
the man. I think he is the one who waylaid Pertinax the other day and
spoke strange stuff about a whore on seven hills whose days are
numbered."

He had raised up the man's head by the hair. Commodus stamped on the
face with the flat of his sandal, crushing the head on the flagstones.

"Christian!" he shouted. "Is this Marcia's doing? Is this Marcia's
expedient to keep me out of the arena? Too long have I endured that
rabble! I will rid Rome of the brood! They kill the shadow--they shall
feel the substance!"

Suddenly he turned on his attendants--pointed at the murderer and his
victim:

"Throw those two into the sewer! Strip them--strip them now--let none
identify them. Seize those spineless fools who let the murder happen.
Tie them. You, Narcissus--march them back to the arena. Have them
thrown into the lions' cages. Stay there and see it done, then come and
tell me."

The courtiers backed away from him as far out of the circle of the
lamplight as the tunnel-wall would let them. He had snatched the lamp
from Tullius. He held it high.

"Two parts of me are dead; t